Y’all know Jacob Dillan Summers by now, right? The former Marine drumline drummer with the stripes tattooed on his biceps? The Alaska native who played around Silver Lake and Echo Park for several years with several bands? The songwriter who, as if by magic, appeared at Raymond Richards’ Red Rockets Glare studio in 2011 with […]
As if we don’t have enough mania in Los Angeles, there seem to be two bands operating under the name Maniac in your neighborhood. We’re going to go crazy for one of them: Maniac is singer-bassist Zache Davis, a Seattle transplant and former member of the Girls and the Cute Lepers, who has teamed up […]
* Updated March 11, 2015: PARIS is now going by Paris Radio and has “re-debuted” the song “My Flesh” (new stream below). The Eighties sure are fun. Especially as they are being reshaped by bands who bring more than computers and synthesizers to the table. The music of the new band PARIS (stylized P A […]
The collaborators in the duo Bleach Egg are well-known in art-pop circles – singer-songwriter Kimi Recor has made music in Black Flamingo, then as Draemings and now in TÊTE, and vocalist-DJ-producer Whitney Fierce sang in Hercules & Love Affair. The principals describe the project as “a joke that has gone too far” – they met […]
Singer-songwriter Trevor Beld-Jimenez and his merry band of collaborators in January released a new EP as Tall Tales and the Silver Lining, songs that honed a distinct sound that’s equal parts cosmic California, soul and West Coast pop. It augured great things for the band, who announced this week they have signed to New York […]
In its quest for some sonic and topical higher ground, art-rock can come off as heavy-handed and indulgent. The new material from L.A. sextet Minnow avoid those perils even as it grapples with weighty matters such as life, death and fleeting youth. The band began as the project of guitarists Madison Megna and Kenny Tye […]
Singer-guitarist Danny Bobbe has introduced his solo project simply as “an EP between LA Font projects.” And if you suspect such a venture would reveal a different side of Bobbe, whose biting wit makes LA Font one of the most compelling indie-rock bands around, you’d be right. In fact, “Out of Reach” reveals several different […]
If you start hearing music geeks talk about Ariel Pink’s forthcoming album in Eggers-like phrases – y’know, “a mind-blowing work of staggering genius” and variations like that – don’t dismiss that chatter as hyperbole. On “Pom Pom,” due Nov. 18 via 4AD, the 36-year-old eccentric has dropped “Haunted Graffiti” from his band name and dropped […]
Mariachi El Bronx proved long ago they are no gimmick, despite what you might surmise from the outline – i.e., five guys from a hardcore punk band go on a south-of-the-border tangent, grow their ranks, get charro suits, become worldwide phenoms live. Their Mexican folk music comes with a big heart and broad imagination, and especially […]
The classic rock of L.A. quintet the Absolute covers a lot of turf, from the folk-inspired troubadours of seemingly ancient times to the audacious shredders of the 1970s to current crop of axemen who mash together all the influences of decades past. The band – singer Phil Ross, guitarists Ashton Likes and Michael Pozzi bassist […]
